1 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,Wow, the supposedly inspiring miracle of the (Red?) sea parting is another nasty massacre by the heart-hardening Lord. He makes the Egyptians go after the Israelites, and then he has Moses drown them all.
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pihahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon: before it shall ye encamp by the sea.
3 For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land, the wilderness hath shut them in.
4 And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honoured upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD. And they did so.
5 And it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled: and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people, and they said, Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?
6 And he made ready his chariot, and took his people with him:
7 And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of them.
8 And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children of Israel: and the children of Israel went out with an high hand.
9 But the Egyptians pursued after them, all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them encamping by the sea, beside Pihahiroth, before Baalzephon.
10 And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD.
11 And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?
12 Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.
13 And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.
14 The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.
15 And the LORD said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward:
16 But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea.
17 And I, behold, I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them: and I will get me honour upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen.
18 And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I have gotten me honour upon Pharaoh, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen.
19 And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face, and stood behind them:
20 And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.
21 And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
22 And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.
23 And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his horsemen.
24 And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians,
25 And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the LORD fighteth for them against the Egyptians.
26 And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen.
27 And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the LORD overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.
28 And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them.
29 But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.
30 Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore.
31 And Israel saw that great work which the LORD did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD, and his servant Moses.
Do they have Egyptian horror films where the plagues and slaughters of Exodus are meted out upon their people? This Pharaoh may have been a bad dude, but the entrapment and wanton destruction are pretty distasteful.
But not to the bloodthirsty YHWH. He's damned proud of it, calling it getting "honour" upon Pharaoh and bragging that "the Egyptians may know that I am the LORD." And the sight of the dead Egyptians, whom God brainwashed into hunting down the Israelites, is called "great work." It leads the chosen decoys to "fear" him, a telling description of the kind of "respect" he craves.
Other bits 'n pieces:
- There's an interesting beat where the doubting Israelites whine to Moses, wondering if they've been brought out to the wilderness to die and claiming "I told you so" about their preferred plan — staying servile to the Egyptians
- This is the first mention of chariots
- We get the colorful phrase "with an high hand," meaning "boldly" or "arrogantly"
- Another mention of "the angel of God" (as seen in Exodus 3, Genesis 48, Genesis 31, Genesis 24, Genesis 22, Genesis 21, and Genesis 16. Seems to me if you introduce a character like "angel of God," you'd sprinkle in a little explanation about what it is and what it's relationship to God is.
13 comments:
Thank you for this and please keep it up if you can retain your sanity:)
The relationship of an "angel of God" to "God" is that the angel is God's messenger. That's what "angel" ("ang-el") means.
This is one of those passages that's spliced together from the three sources - Jahwist, Elohist, and Priestly Source. The splicing is quite intimate here, but essentially it works out as follows:
Jahwist - The Israelites are lead out of Egypt by God in a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. Pharaoh changes his mind, and chases after the Israelites, but Moses reassures the people. The pillar of smoke then stands between the Israelites and the Egyptians all night, separating them, while God sends a wind to blow back the sea.
Elohist - God leads the Israelites out of Egypt, and is chased out by the Egyptians. The Israelites complain to Moses that he has led them to their deaths; but "the angel of God " removes/clogs the Egyptian chariot wheels.
Priestly Source - God sends Pharaoh after the Israelites in order to demonstrate his power. God commands Moses to stretch out his rod and divide the waters, causing a wall of water to form either side, which collapses on the Egyptians when the Israelites have crossed.
If you check where they were before and after, geographically, you'll realise that they are near where the suez canal is, not the great width of the red sea. Its thought that the Hebrew term ("Yam Suph") really means "Reed Sea", and refers to a kind of marsh that was in that area.
The Priestly Source has major divine intervention, while the older Jahwist and Elohist (on which the Priestly Source is based) are much more natural. Once again, the Priestly Source is much more bloodthirsty, and xenophobic.
Magically crossing the Red Sea isn't that impressive really. Alexander the great is credited in histories of the time with crossing the Red Sea with his army by "magic". In reality, its quite a low lying marsh, and so Chariots would have been bogged down (more like the Elohist account), but passage would have been possible, especially if the water levels had retreated (due to natural and small changes in tide - like the Jahwist account).
Both the Jahwist and Elohist accounts ultimately derive from the "Song of the Sea" - an ancient poem which was incorporated into the accounts after the prose versions. The "Song of the Sea" is the oral tradition ("folk tale") that the story comes from, and now appears in Exodus 15 - the Jahwist version (15:1-18) is there in full but the Elohist version (15:21) is truncated and only the first line appears (probably because an editor thought it pointless to duplicate the poem twice, right next to the first copy). The "Moses sang ..." and "Miriam sang ..." lines are editorials added by the Jahwist and Elohist to join the poem into the surrounding narrative.
Thank you for this. I am trying not to be pessimistic, but it seems like a failed project to try to reason against a position that has already declared itself outside of reason. Showing them logical contradictions will not help; they simply answer that god is not bound by what our simple minds understand as a contradiction. Faith, by definition, overcomes contradictions.
Thanks anonymae:
On the assumption that you're three different posters, I'll reply to you separately:
A1: Like they say, you don't have to be crazy to do a Bible study for atheists, but it sure helps. Good lord willin' and the crick don't rise, I'm in this for the long haul.
A2: Thanks as always for your cool documentary-hypothesis / historical info.
A3: Thank you for your concern, but my goal was to read the Bible and critique and/or appreciate it through a literal / metaphorical reading of the text. Slowly but surely, I'm doing that, so I don't see this as a failure.
I'm planning to stay the course, because if we gave up now, the Judeo-Christians would follow us here, and then where would we be? Well, we'd be here, but whatever.
I make no claims that this endeavor will sway True Believers into seeing (or not seeing, depending on how you look at it) the light.
So I suppose the separate accounts which Anonymous/Jesus references is the reason for the repetitive verses about the water being a wall on either side as well as the other redundancies in this chapter.
Egyptian horror films... Sure that wasnt an episode of MST3k?
So God literally forces the Egyptians to stubbornly march on to their deaths just so He can make a name for Himself. I know, that's what's been going on in the whole book of Exodus. I always felt bad for the horses. They didn't even worship the wrong gods.
Lippygirl in Sacto, CA (aka Anon #1)
"anonymous" is either 3rd declension in latin, or is Greek. So it would be "anonymoum" or "anonymouses" or "anonymous" in plural; or it could be irregular and become "anonymoux".
"anonymae" would be the plural of "anonyma"
krankor, if you see redundancies in an account (traditionally termed "narrative couplets"), its a big clue that there are separate accounts spliced together. Another thing that's a big clue is abrupt changes of vocabulary - not so clear in translation, but still a little obvious - there's a bit in the book of Numbers (much later) called the "heresy of peor", that's really the start of one account, the end of a different one, and the middles spliced together, but its obvious because the protagonists and enemy suddenly change half way through the story.
Despite two years of Latin, I feel like I went to Father Guido Sarducci's "Five-Minute University," for all I remember. Helps with vocabulary, though.
Anyway, A., you left out two important considerations:
* -ae is more fun
* -oux sounds French
well, if all you are after is fun, you could have anonymot (Hebrew), anonymim (Hebrew) anonymoutu (Arabic) anonymouna (Arabic) anonymout (Old Egyptian) anonymour (Old English)
Ooh, "anonymour" sounds colorful.
It's just another case of Moses saying, "My god can kick your god's ass." No doubt, Yaweh was a bad mother-fucker. Look out Zeus, here he comes... --DocMike
BTW, welcome to the Blogroll.
I heard this story once that gives a fair idea of where believers and unbelievers stand:
An atheist was discussing this very passage with a Baptist minister. He was explaining that Moses most likely didn't part the Red Sea, that modern scholarship said the probable translation was "sea of reeds", and that the Israelites and Egyptians were in a marshy area, and not a sea at all.
"Praise the Lord!" declared the Baptist minister. "It truly was a miracle! God drowned the entire Egyptian army in just two inches of water!"
"Religious wars are basically people killing each other over who has the better imaginary friend."
Post a Comment